Sam & Max: Season 2 – PC – Preview

PAX 2007 Preview

Give Telltale Games a lot
of credit. Sure, the episodic-downloadable game (delivered digitally) has been
done before, but until Sam and Max came along, it was not nearly as successful.

But Sam and Max changed
all that. The title was wildly successful, and Telltale Games is moving forward
with Season 2. Catching up with team members during the Penny Arcade Expo in the
Washington State Convention Center in Seattle reveals much of the reasons for
the success of the franchise – they love the humor and the opportunity to freely
create their vision.

If you think that Sam and
Max bore some resemblance to games like Grim Fandango (LucasArts), there is a
reason for that. Much of the Telltale team is former LucasArts employees and
some even working on either Grim Fandango or the Monkey Island series. LucasArts
did have the rights to Steve Purcell’s work (Purcell is the creator of Sam and
Max, releasing the comic book back in 1987. Sam and Max actually first appeared
in a game in 1993 (Sam & Max Hit the Road). LucasArts had the rights but various
projects were cancelled and the rights eventually went back to Purcell, who
allowed Telltale to develop the license as an episodic video game. That was a
blessing because with the distribution system, well, “the whole digital download
thing really let us make the game we wanted to make,” said Telltale’s Design
Director Dave Grossman.

So much for the backdrop,
you are saying, what about the game? Well, unfortunately, the Telltale crew
didn’t live up to their company’s moniker and were rather tight-lipped
concerning the details of the title. But what they did show off during the
meeting were some of the changes coming to the game.

Bosco’s store, for
example, has undergone a dramatic change. In the first game, Bosco would sell
Sam and Max items they could use for escalating costs. In Season Two, he has
made so much money off the pair (a hundred-trillion dollars) that he really
doesn’t need to run a store anymore and can actually give into his paranoia,
which includes – among other things – a machine which will determine if you are
not welcomed to the shop or if you are “not unwelcome.”

At the end of one of the
streets in the game was a diner, which was always closed. That diner is now
accessible. It is Stinky’s Diner and it is “always open, unless it is closed,”
and features its own cast of characters.

There are also more mini
games, including a chance to use a doll to duke it out with Jimmy Two Teeth, the
boxing champ rat from Season One.

The humor is rather
evident throughout the story. Even the Telltale quartet had a hard time keeping
straight faces as punch line after punch line was delivered through the few
scenes shown.

A couple other changes
will enable Sam to run now and holding down the cursor, instead of constantly
pointing and clicking on ground areas, will allow players to navigate the scenes
at a constant pace. Also, in Season One, Telltale had a deal with GameTap that
allowed the latter to feature the digital download for 15 days before it
appeared on the Telltale site. That has been reduced to a one-day exclusive lead
for GameTap.

The look is great, the
humor is obviously there and this is a title to get excited about. When will it
release? Well, the team was not really sure outside of saying that it was
expected to launch in the fall.